Rev. Hiram Harvey
No history of old Grant county families would be complete without some space devoted to the Harvey family. It has lived in this county sixty-five years. A beautiful farmstead on Section Thirty-four of Liberty Township is occupied by Rev. Hiram Harvey, and the same land was cleared and cultivated by his grandfather and father successively. Rev. Harvey's farm comprises ninety acres and in every attribute and improvements, is a farm of the highest class, and one that might well serve as a model of progressive Grant County agriculture. Some of eth conspicuous feathers about this place are a commodious and comfortable white house, with a correspondingly white barn, and flanking the farm buildings is a large silo with eighty tons capacity. In section thirty-five of the same township Mr. Harvey owns another tract of sixty acres. All this land is cultivated up to the very highest efficiency, the fertility of the soil is as great now as it was seventy years ago, and the annual product represents a neat sum in the regular income of the owner. Mr. Harvey is a man of large and wholesome character, with strong spiritual tendencies. He is trustee of the endowment fund of the Fairmount Academy, a fund now amounting to more than twenty-two thousand dollars. He is also Evangelist Superintendent of the Quaker Quarterly Meeting, and his wife is Sunday School Superintendent of that meeting.
The history of the Harvey family begins with five brothers who came from North Carolina to Clinton County, Ohio, about one hundred and twenty years ago. One of these brothers was Eli Harvey, great-grandfather of Rev. Hiram Harvey. When a young married man he brought his family to Ohio, and sat that time his son William, the grandfather, was a child. William Harvey was born about 1789, grew up on the family home in Clinton County, Ohio, and in that locality Eli and wife died. They were staunch members of the Quaker Church, and industrious and quiet living farmers. William Harvey grew up in Clinton County, took up farming as his vocation, and married Ruth Hadley. Later they moved to Indiana, and became early settlers in Morgan County, near Moorsville. In Morgan County were some of their children born, including Jehu Harvey, born in 1833. In 1848 William Harvey and wife and family came to Grant County, and secured land which was almost new and largely unbroken in Section Thirty-four of Liberty Township. The industry of William Harvey was largely responsible for the improvement and clearing of this land, and though the family first lived in one of the typical log cabins that habitation was later replaced by a good house and many other improvements testified to the sturdy and ambitious character of the Harvey race. William Harvey died when ninety-four years of age, and was preceded by his wife many years before, her death occurring sometime between 1850 and 1852. Both were birthright Quakers, and belonged to the Little Ridge Church. The family of nine sons and three daughters of William Harvey and wife are mentioned as follows: David, Jonathan, William, Eli, Mahlon, Jehu, Sidney, Alvin, Hiram, Sallie, Rebecca, and Mary. Of the sons Alvin and Hiram died, the former at the age of seventeen and the latter at the age of seven. All the others grew up and were married and had families. The daughters, with the exception of one, had children.
John Harvey, the father, was as already stated, born in 1833, and was fifteen years of age when the family moved to grant county. His early life was spent on the farm, and after reaching manhood he married Rebecca Reader, a daughter of Spencer and Julia (Cox) Reader. The Readers are a family of prominent old settlers of Liberty Township, and are mentioned in other parts of this volume. Jehu Harvey and wife located on a farm in Liberty Township, and owned and operated it successfully for some years, gradually acquiring other lands and improving them. His death occurred in 1875 on the farm now owned by his son Hiram in Section Thirty-four. For some years he had been in poor health. His widow still lives, is hale and hearty at the age of seventy-eighty. both parents were birthright Quakers, and worshipped at the Little Ridge Church. Mrs. Harvey has for years been an elder in the Friends Church. The politics of Jehu Harvey was Republican.
Nine children were the fruit of the union of Jehu Harvey and wife, and are mentioned as follows:
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Hiram.
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Edwin is a farmer, was twice married, lives in Liberty Township, and there is one living child by each wife.
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William R. lives on a farm in Section Thirty-four of Liberty Township.
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Cynthia, died when a young woman of seventeen years.
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Ellen married Amiziah Beason, a merchant, now in business in the Province of Saskatchewan, Canada, and has four children.
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Julia, died at the age of fourteen.
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Mary, married Hiram Jarrett, a farmer in Hancock County, Indiana, and has two living children.
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Mina was the eighth child.
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Alice, died at the age of twenty-eight unmarried.
Rev. Hiram Harvey, who was the oldest son and the first child in order of birth, was born in Liberty Township, April 1, 1863. His home has been here all his life, and he now owns and occupies a farm cultivated by both his father and grandfather. His early education was better than ordinary, sine he had the advantages of the Common Schools, and later three years in the County Normal and one year in the State Normal. When a little passed twenty years of age he began teaching, his first school being the Marks School District Number Four in Sims Township. After three winters of teaching he took up his regular vocation as a farmer. In 1899 his comfortable dwelling was destroyed by fire and was at once replaced with the present modern residence, one of the most attractive in Liberty Township. Mr. Harvey believes in the rotary principal of growing crops, and his land is divided into convenient fields and successively cropped with oats, corn, wheat, alfalfa, and other staple crops of Grant County. His stock consists principally of the Red Durock wine, and practically all the grain and forage products of the farm are fed to the stock.
Mr. Harvey was married in Fairmount Township to Miss Sara E., usually called Sadie, Bell, a daughter of William Bell, of a prominent family mentioned elsewhere in this volume. Mrs. Harvey was born in Randolph County, North Carolina, March 17, 1864. She was reared and educated in Indiana, and is the mother of two children, Alva, who died at the age of four and a half years, and Russell T., now twenty-one years of age, the husband of May Woodruff, and they live on the farm with Mr. Harvey. Mr. Harvey was for many yeas an elder in the Friends Society, and for the past six years has been a minister of the Friends Church. Mrs. Harvey is an elder in that society. Practically ever since he cast his first vote, Mr. Harvey has supported the Prohibition cause.
Centennial History of Grant County Indiana 1812-1912. The Lewis Publishing Co., 1914